Composite materials are now widely used in many industrial fields, especially in the aeronautics and aerospace fields, which benefit from the various properties that these materials possess.
These composite materials are used, for instance, to manufacture load-bearing aircraft structures, in which combined properties of lightness and mechanical resistance permit the manufacture of load-bearing structures that are lighter than those manufactured using conventional materials but have an equivalent mechanical resistance, and therefore permit the manufacture of an aircraft that consumes less energy or carries a greater payload.
Manufacturing load-bearing structures requires a structural dimensioning step wherein the stresses to which the various structures will be subject (mechanical, thermal, etc) are identified, and the properties of the composite materials for the parts are determined.
After the load-bearing aircraft structures are produced, the various systems that the aircraft comprises are installed. An aircraft generally comprises several types of systems, for instance the electrical/electronic systems such as the avionics, the power distribution network, or the network transmitting passenger data such as the audio/video signals of the in-flight entertainment system.
The installation of the electrical/electronic systems, which are more and more numerous and more and more complex, requires installing a plurality of bundles of cables that are placed, for example, along load-bearing structures where said bundles of cables are exposed to potential damage.
It is known from patent U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,349 for the entire electrical/electronic network to be integrated directly in a single part made of composite material, between the layers of said composite material, in the case of an airplane essentially comprising an upper part and a lower part.
In patent U.S. Pat. No. 7,047,349, the integration of different electrical/electronic elements (cables, interconnecting stations, etc) between the folds of a composite material has an impact on the homogeneity of said material, resulting in its mechanical resistance being reduced.
Moreover, integrating the entire electrical network in a single part is not suited to producing large-sized airliners, where parts are generally made from a large number of composite material parts that are assembled.
Further, integrating electrical/electronic elements in load-bearing structures poses a problem of electromagnetic compatibility such as, for instance, lightning protection for said elements, which is a particularly important problem for structures made from composite materials.